Did a Republican Megadonor Just Secretly Buy Nevada’s Biggest Newspaper?

Mother Jones

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Conventional wisdom holds that you do not want to buy a newspaper because newspapers are terrible investments. Yet late last week, someone did buy the largest newspaper in Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and paid a premium for it. Even stranger, nobody knows who it was, and the new owners seem to be actively working to keep it that way.

The sale has created a controversy because, while there is no rule requiring a newspaper to disclose its owners, the Journal-Review will be, by far, the largest newspaper in America whose owners are secret. The intrigue is not just journalistic: For a well-heeled person interested in influencing an election, owning the largest paper in the state that in a few short months will hold one of the first nominating events of the primary season (third for Democrats and fourth for Republicans) is a good place to start.